Composition for railway signal fusees



Patented Jan. 9, 1923.

I, warren er-arias Lannie ELI/[ER o. rrnrn. or ros'romn; onro, ,nssreiion ro onn'rnennainwnr. SIGNAL COMPANY, or PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA, e CORPORATION or NEwJERsnY,

- oomrosrrron roniaiuLwAY' srGNAL r sEEsI The Drawing.

.To all whom it may concern:

'Beit known that I, ELMER C. Prune, citizen of the United States, residing at Fostoria, inthecounty of Seneca and State of Ohio, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Compositions tor Ritll which willineet all of the complex requirements imposed upon railway time burning signal fusees by the conditions underwhich such signalsare used, and which will not-be subject to spontaneous ignition.

Heretofore, only two types of railway time burning signal fusees have ever been commercially used by the railroads, so far as'I am aware, after years-of practical ex; perience by me in the. manufacture and sale of railway signals, and these two types have become well known to those skilled inv this art as First: The chlorate fusee and SecondJ: The perchlorate fusee.

The first type, was exclusively commer cially manufactured and sold, and exclusively used by the railroads for fully twenty. years, before the, discovery of the second type of tusee. The first type (chlorate iusee) was subjectto spontaneous ignition,

' and caused much damage to property and life because of that known detect.

After the discovery and commercial manufactureof the second type (perchlorate fusee) which overcame the defect ofs onta-neous ignition, the Bureau for the are Transportation of Eisiplosives,by its specification prohibited the transportation of the dangerous chlorate fusee, and slnce that time the perchlorate fusee has been exclusively manufactured, and exclusively used by railroads. The practical requirements of railway signal fusees, may be briefly. summarized to be burning in all kinds. of

weather; burn when submerged in a snow bank or in a puddle of water; burning a predetermined specified time under such conditions; burning with brilliancy and force of flame under said conditions; consuming the tough fiber tube uniformly with the composition which is tightly packed therein to prevent chimneying; withstanding the shock of being thrown from a rapidly Application filed Auiistfifl, 1918.. Serial 'No.251,91'1.

running train withoutbreaking and without being extinguished capable of being readily kindled; capable of free burning at the lowest practical temperature, and at the same time not be subject to spontaneous com bu'stion irrespective of its age.

The perchlorate fusee is the only fusee known to me that has commerciallymet the foregoing requirements; In devising a fusee composition, there are conditions to be met beyond the mere action of the chemicals upon each other, as they must collectively act asrequired when tightly packed in a tough tube, and they must collectively act to consume the tough tube uniformly with the burning of the tightly packed composition, So a railway time burning fusee compositionis more than the mere mixing of certain chemicals.

For the above reasons, the production of a chemical composition for railway signal pt'usees, which will serve successfully all the requirements imposed upon it, has long been recognizedas a very difiicult problem. And tor these reasons, although many different compositions have been proposed,the only one known to me today which commercially and successfully meets these requirements is the perchlorate fusee, and, in fact, it is the only type of railway signal fusee that is today manufactured and used;

.The perchlorate fusee formula, as used today is perchlorate ;sulphur; carbohydrate the form oi. greased sawdust) a strontium nitrate. for color, and charcoal.

Perchlorate has for some time been difficult toobtain, and is very expensive. Be-' to either (1) Produce fusee compound without perchlorate which would meet the requirement, or

(2) Reduce the amount of perchlorate to such an extent that the foregoing troubles would become substantially negligible.

After much thought and experime-ntation, I have been able to produce a railway time burning signal fusee composition, which will meet all the requirements, entirely without perchlorate, to which" preferably so littleperchlorate is added as to make the commercial use thereof not objectionable.

My new railway time burning signal fusee composition consists offthe following in- 

